


■HHHHnHI 







58$ 









Class *?$ 3 5)3 
Book. .gU^IS 



Copyright^ . 



^go4 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



INTERLUDES 



BY 



Philip Becker Goetz 




Boston: Richard G. Badger 

The Gorham Press 

1904 



Copyright 1904 by Philip Becker Goetz, 
All Rights Reserved. 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Tv/o Copies fieceiveu 

NOV 7 1904 

Copyngnt tdtry 



H 



OPY B, 



-ft** 



CIS 



X 



qo 



*' 



Printed at 
The Gorham Press 
Boston, U. S. A. 



TO MY WIFE 



THE GARDEN 

I sowed a garden in the air 
For earth ivas full of death, 
I hung it in a clime most rare 
Where stars might give it breath. 

I gave it the tears I never shed, 
The kisses I dared not own, 
Upon my secret soul it fed 
And I knew joys unknown 

(As if a man should verily know 
The utter mystery, 
The waiting mother s zuondrous woe 
And crowning ecstasy). 

But e'en mine eye is far too iveak 
To follow ichere they fall: 
My flowers it were vain to seek — 
They drop to the lifted call. 

Mayhap I in an alien land 
Shall find my blossoms there, 
Some undreamed girl tvith happy hand 
Bind my rose in her hair. 



CONTENTS 




Interludes 


Page 


Spring 


9 


Astray .... 


ii 


Rudel 


12 


A Prayer .... 


15 


Callisto .... 


16 


The Creation of Man 


21 


Niagara .... 


22 


The Death of Keats 


24 


Two Views of a Portrait 


26 


Autumn Night 


27 


The Call 


28 


Sea-Piece .... 


30 


The Fall of the Damned 


31 


October .... 


33 


Mary Replies 


34 


The Unknown Face 


36 


Beyond .... 


37 


Poetae Apologia . . . . 


39 


Two Ballads 




Gradlon . . ... 


45 


The Heir .... 


51 


Eight Sonnets 




Judged .... 


55 


Shakspere .... 


55 


Soul-Vision .... 


56 


Beethoven . 


56 


After-Bloom . 


57 


Vergil .... 


57 


Dusk .... 


58 


Glory .... 


58 


Various Poems and Songs 




The Meadow-Lark 


61 


Song .... 


63 


Two Girls . 


64 


Song . 


65 


Horoscope .... 


65 


Lines to a Wood-Thrush 


66 



April . 

Song 

The Hunters 

Warum ? 

Song 

Quest 

A Theme from Chopin 

August 

Song 

Apart . 

The Revealer 

Shakspere 

The Pianist 

Spring Raindrops 

Odors 

Symbols 

On One Obscure . 

Fascination 

Song 

The Palmer Prays . 

Independence Day, 1898 

Song 

February 

In the Heart of a Wood 

Song 

Dream-Poem 

Wild-Flower 

Song 

Autumn Confessional 

November 

December 

Song 

The Avenger 

The Whole Story 



INTERLUDES 



SPRING 

The alchemist has busied her again 
With colors, sounds, and shapes of bold effect. 
The rotting mire she quickens at a touch 
And startles to one palpitating croak; 
Lips on the brown earth bubble into bloom ; 
Arrows are shot down from the frowning clouds 
And burst into flame-breasted robin-calls; 
The topmost twig of yon bare cherry-tree 
Swells to a thrush trilling the warm dew out. 
Some glowing land unto our cold land laughs 
With shrill abandonment and ecstasy 
At drowning other emulous shouts of joy. 
Through the wise trees and grass and herbs and 

plants 
Runs shivering the hint of coming passion: 
It is a time for revelry and song; 
It is an hour when breath intoxicant 
With treasured fever flings itself away 
Into another's breath oblivious. 
The love of life is rising to the lips, 
The beauty of the world into the eyes; 
Valleys and hills are odorous again : 
Chill streams run tepider against the touch ; 
There is emancipation for us slaves, 
Or trees or flowers or man, — it matters not — 
Into the pure delirium of words, 
Scents, saps ; the rapture of expression's bound, 
Coining the blood to dropping melodies 
Till soul sways through the body like a song 
Echoed through empty halls, unused of men. 
So, -rightly are these days made consecrate 
To who would make us subtle syllables 
In the wide chant God sings and calls the world. 
Sweep me, great Breath, between Thine opened 

lips, 

9 



And utter me a noble word to men, 
That I may linger on beyond spent days, 
Mayhap a memory to listening children, 
Sending the stirred blood through the cheeks of 

youth, 
Bringing them trust of their own strength and 

truth, 
Forging just lightning 'gainst the acted lie, 
And cherishing the love that palsies wrong. 



10 



ASTRAY 

I marvel not that sadder grows the world, 
For men have lost the love of simple things. 
With eloquence of nature's music mute, 
With speed of waterways made bond to trade, 
With stately trees brought low for needless heaps, 
With flowers forced untimely into bloom,— 
What is there honest, free, and fair remaining? 
We stifle in our towns of prisoned air 
And haply with a rare glance from the earth 
We see a square of blue or curdled cloud 
Or niggard stretch of moonlight through a street. 
At manners of the hill-bound hind we scoff, 
Although we know not what those hills have 

taught 
Of dumb and deep contempt for city's towers. 
And in these keeps of pain, disease, and sin, 
These wards of grief whose keys are our own eyes, 
With blanched regard we tell ourselves we live. 
O mother of us all, from whom we went 
As early as our tender steps were free, 
Whose near outstretch of arm we put aside 
To hurry from thy verdant aisles of peace, 
Take us again, us sick with thought and craft, 
And lull us with thy choirs of careless birds ; 
And if there be more tragedy beneath 
The swell of thy serene, sweet mother breasts, 
Preserve tlry silence and thy smile of old, 
Make merry with thy children as we glance, 
Let perfume charm and wonder awe once more 
As, leaning to thy heart our tired desires, 
We feel the oblivious beat of speechless love. 



II 



RUDEL 

SCENE : Deck of a galley nearing the harbor 
of Trip o li (Syria). 

RUDEL (on a couch) 

Good men, lift me a little : I am fain 

To look upon the wide sea under us 

And so put from my brain the rage of fever 

Which makes the ocean habit mortal mind. 

I have for many nights been many men, 

But now I know the stiller morning air 

That haunts the long-sought harbor, loves the 

land, 
Waits like a heaven after earth. I would, 
When we are come, that one were swift of foot 
And sped him where my serene lady dwells, 
Countess of Tripoli. They say (who know) 
Her palace from the happy port not more 
Than one league stands apparent, nobly strong, 
With prop of Parian so fair and clear 
That from its height it seems a sudden girl 
Sending a white prayer seaward. But, I pray, — 
Or 'tis mine eye or some close-veiling mist 
That will not show that welcome in this hour — 
There, let me sink. So held, I languid breathe. 
Bid him who shall be messenger but say 
One stays e'en Death to touch her living hand; 
Say, too, he is a man of airy songs 
That he hath gentler fashioned that she lived ; 
And that, like them, he reaches to the dark 
And fain would have her voice to interrupt 
The unquelled yearning of his ending years 
In pity's blessed litany to ease 
Outward the spirit issuing. Tell me! 
Yet why ask I ? I know we kiss the shore. 



12 



Ha! have I not oft felt the ship's heart stop 
And felt ft throb against the greeting land? 
Away! I die each moment of return. 

Enter A SEAMAN 

There is no need of message: one comes here 
With courtly following and bravest show. 

(Enter COUNTESS OF TRIPOLI and 

Attendants) 

COUNTESS 
Is this the poet, Rudel, of renown? 

RUDEL 
How come you to my side in this one hour? 

COUNTESS 

Think not of that : the rumor of your way 
Outsped your own ship's weary traveling; 
And I, my modesty aside, thus day 
On day have fixed mine eyes upon the sea. 
Live, Rudel, master of all minstrels born! 
See — 

RUDEL 

Nay, your hand upon mine eyelids — so. 
Not long: fast drift away the senses quite, 
Fast into vanishment, smoke wedding air. 

COUNTESS 

Ah, not so, Rudel. Live another day. 
13 



RUDEL 

Ay, many days, but none save in your soul. 
To God I prayed and He was very good: 
I see you beautiful beyond my dreams, 
Beyond aspiring poem, melody; 
The snaring hair, the soundless depth of eye 
Are here; and I, content. Bend to me— Love! 

(She kisses him) 
He sings: 

Love, are the stars with love so pale 
(Far, oh far, from the moon away!) 
Or is that two eyes fail? 

Love, is this an amorous air 

(Far , oh far, from the moon away!) 
Or death, doth he kiss so fair? 

Love, is this the earth of my years 

(Far, oh far, from the moon away!) 
Or heaven with human tears? 

Love, is this a song that I sing 

(Far, oh far, from the moon away!) 
Or a soul on new-born wing? 

Love, this is all I pray to see 

(Far, oh far, from the moon away!) 
Your eyes and living lips on me! 

(Dies) 
COUNTESS 

The eyes are far. The mist sweeps down the hill. 



14 



A PRAYER 

O Thou who art the world's quick heart of 

flame 
Inspiring and uniting all mankind, 
Deny not to our need Thy glow and breadth ; 
Teach to our outward eyes Thy formal beauty 
And to our inward eyes Thine endless truth; 
And keep us ardent in desire of Thee 
And sweeten to our use all sacraments 
Of body, mind, and soul that we mav live 
In the white bounds of joy and purity, 
Our summer souls on the cool steeps of search. 



15 



CALLISTO 

One hot night in July up high o'er sea 
The thirsty bears held discourse on their woe. 
Areas turned slow his eyes to where lay fast 
By naught more palpable than Jove's decree, 
Callisto, mother of him, maid too fair 
For the exalted heart of heaven's lord. 
"Mother, I burn. But thou, as now, so oft 
Before this hour hast aye denied me solace 
Of soothed lip from the mere rim and touch 
Of Ocean's cup. Wherefore, O mother mine, 
Am I thus fretted with unending death? 
Why must I see just at the birth of peace 
Young Sol rise dripping from the quiet sea, 
His hair auroral with fresh joy and love, 
Making the earth voluptuously toss 
Up to his passionate smile her girdling bloom? 
Yet never may I suage one finger-tip, 
Though ache and fierce delirium distress. 
And ever as I ask and plead and spend 
Vainly caress and tear, thou art not won 
To solve my questioning, but addest pain 
To pain, exhorting still to hide my woe." 
Then the great mother-eyes looked full on him 
And her drawn words came hardly to their birth : 
"Areas, my son, forbear to chide me thus. 
Count I one ache less than thy manly sum? 
Am I not parched as thou ? Lean not mine eyes 
With equal yearning toward th' untasted cup? 
For that I am a woman and thy mother, 
I suffer and am still, yet nevermore 
Will I unanswering abide rebuke, 
Though with the veil o'er my hid history 
I pluck away thy love for me, thy mother. 
Thou well rememberest that through thy youth 
Thy grandsire, King Lycaon, brought thee up, 

16 



A stray flower of the wood of Arcady. 
Alike that sire and thou were ignorant 
Whence thou wast sprung, how noble was thy 

line. 
Why, then, we bathe not brow nor soothe the lip 
With the cool wave, mark now my words and 

learn. 
I dwelt in Arcady, a princess born, 
No less in honor than of royal blood. 
When I went forth a mere girl through the 

realm, 
My way was strewn with flowers of every dye ; 
I was acclaimed indeed a princess born. 
For that I was Lycaon's child not needed 
They heap my progress with glad offices 
Of love and signs of awe approaching prayer : 
It lay that I was fair to look upon ; 
Children and men I made glad when I smiled, 
And women feared me, few dared hope me friend. 
I grew a virgin, proud and more proud ever, 
For in my beauty's heart a certain strength 
Seemed throned, and when I moved among the 

court, 
No task, no thought I envied not another. 
Men vowed me justly hight Callisto, so 
Mine eyes beamed with most honorable light. 
The glade I loved : and one alone of women 
I loved, — swift Dian, all day and at night 
When crescent bow swung idle from her car 
Untroubled as she measured trackless darks. 
Me Dian loved. Among her nymphs immortal 
None prized she more or with more candid voice 
Summoned in confidence to scare the quarry ; 
Nor less was I the darling of her mates. 
In what cool grot among what secret springs 
With my chaste queen have I not bared my body? 
Arcady knows no perfect pool but we 



17 



Have drained refreshment there with sleep secure 
Along the guarded marge. But all joys end 
When mortal are the hearts inhabiting. 
One morning as I ranged the rising ground 
Near Parrhasis before the sun looked o'er 
The tree-tops, one — my queen, methought — stood 

near. 
She spake my name. I answered: 'My lady, 

hail!' 
Then further ran her voice: 'Is day yet drunk 
With sleep and thou art eager for the chase? 
What stag makes emulous thy bow of horn? 
What dart divines the path to his gay heart?' 
I smiled, ashamed; whereon, she nearer drew: 
'Callisto, sweet, my lips are thine.' Tiptoe 
I stood to reach her lips divine, but took 
From them a sting responsive ; I grew scared ; 
A strange fire seemed to start in her deep eyes. 
I thought her angered and I turned to flee; 
But it was vain: still stung that kiss and then 
An arm — as little Dian's — strained me fast. 
'Avoid not Jove!' the changing voice declared. 
When I awoke, the sun was curtaining 
The sky with spoils of his hot hunt. Homeward 
I gravely went: I knew me virginless. 
I dreaded Dian ; but she smiled in dreams, 
Beckoned me with the bow held toward my hand, 
And pointed where the untouched deer escaped. 
Against my will I sought the wilds again, 
But with what weary feet and heavy thoughts ! 
Early I found her and she chided me 
For that I left her train inconstant thus 
And most unworthy of the hunter's fame. 
Some faint reply essayed I in defense 
And blushed therewith ; and wonderment held all. 
Thereon the nymphs were fain to bathe or ere 
The chase began. I know not why or how 

18 



But a close, stifling horror made me shake 

Now to reveal my body, for it seemed 

Of right no longer mine : I stood the mark 

Of pointed finger at another's shame. 

If maids themselves, they were not slow to guess 

Calamity in me, for as they saw 

The rondure of my womb, abundant breasts, 

And hungry look, with shame they blanched as 

she, 
The queen, with anger: 'Hence, out of my sight! 
Hateful Callisto, violate virgin, hence ! 
I curse thee, faithless! Nevermore pollute 
Or pool or sea or chaster spring with touch 

Of hand or lip or body, — hence, for aye !' 

By day I grieved, by night I wept for thee ; 

Cursed of the goddess, far from home went I 

A solitary wanderer, in shame. 

In a wild mountain-dell I brought thee forth 

With no pain save thy one mad cry of joy 

That seemed a jeer; thus well interpreted, 

For, as I reached to lift thee up, my nails 

Were grown long thorns ; my face began to veil 

Itself under a thicket of swift hair ; 

Unsightly, momently I changed. T tried 

To walk, but fell to grovel like a beast ; 

I tried to speak: a raucous groan came out. 

At the smooth recess of a fount I glanced 

And saw me hideous with shape and snout 

Of a loose-gaited bear. Still I recalled 

My life, knew all the scenes, heard human sounds 

As to Lycaon secretly that eve 

I hurried with thee hung between my jaws. 

He found thee, reared thee like the prince thou 

wast, 
Albeit unwitting. Aye I haunted thee 
And, to my sorrow, frightened thee, my heart 
No less thy mother's and my love no less. 



19 



Often I 'scaped thy weapon by the grace 

Of Jove who watched between and over us. 

One night, a night like this in hot July, 

I cowered in the wilds, fearful of beasts 

As thou of me, and gazed into the air. 

v Great King of all the earth and sky,' I prayed, 

'Thou who didst teach me woe out of thy joy 

And madest me a stranger to white peace, 

If there be place among the patient stars 

And if their eyes may be incurious, 

Couch me on clouds, abstract me from this earth, 

Far from forbidden sea I fain would flee, 

Far from polluted Arcady, far hence. 

And if I ask a fate allowed my lips, 

Grant at his mortal quelling, Areas, too, 

To keep me company that I starve not 

By barren glances earthward when he dies, 

For he is of my body, fruit of me, 

And alien of the crime thy mind conceived.' 

With upward palms as thus I prayed in pain, 

Upward I yearned to Jove's own steadfast star 

And waited, son, thy coming, cheering heart, 

So cheerless else, with just the hope of thee, 

The twin woe making joy, if joy be mine." 

So ended she; and transformed Areas turned 

And with hot human tears down dropping fast : 

"Mother of mine, never again shall I 

Thee chide or superadd to sorrow, pain. 

I blame not thee, for I have learned thy heart. 

Parched throat of mine with thine more parched 

is weak 
To make me murmur to thy stricken ear. 
Forgive me, mother, I will steadfast be. 
I love thee more than death : I will not fail." 



20 



THE CREATION OF MAN 

The great God dreamed above the formless vault 
(If vault may be the name when form was not), 
And ever marveled vagrant faculties 
When outlawry should cease and order reign. 
Aeons were sped or ere the Father turned 
And shook weariness off His members, sleep 
From the long-weighted lids. Lo, where His eyes 
Fixed glory of their glance, new-born the stars 
Bloomed, myriads to echo radiance. 
Half in the wonder of majestic might, 
Half in delight, desire possessed His will 
To seek the end of His star-waking eyes; 
But end there was not. Endless as He fared, 
Swiftly He glanced, and ever, answering glance, 
Worlds burgeoned in the hollow mold of Chaos. 
Weary again God sank upon a star — 
O blessed star, to couch so grand a burden, 
O blessed earth, if blessed be the issue! 
There as He soothed divine His aching soul 
In the bright bosom of the trembling earth, 
Off the wide brow and dominant down dropped 
On the ripe dust one bead of golden sweat 
Which, in its new bed, sweet contending, bred 
Instant prophetic, man. So man was made, 
Imagined some Slav poet ages gone. 



21 



NIAGARA 

I hungered for the birds and woods and flowers, 
Smell of the springing grass and pungent herbs 
And dear old ugly earth ; and so my queen 
And I hurried to nearest paradise. 
I wonder if you know that braver rock 
That juts out from the farthest Sister isle 
Not toward the south away from violence 
But toward the west, firm-footed in the shock : 
There throned, we watched the rapids toss and 

burst 
To spume and dance in dissipated frenzy 
Onward in ragged heaps to the last leap. 
Hither they drop, wall after crashing wall, 
Wide-thundering like to huge muniments 
Swept by a raging scourge from out the sky, 
And all the enginery and shapes Protean 
Of horrid hosts accursed commingle here 
With rolling roar against their rebel end. 
These gemmy ramparts now in ire so molten 
Appear an endless emerald undulant 
Struck into precious pearls and diamonds rare 
As rocket-swift they shoot up to the sun, 
Swing forward, clustered in the laughing air, 
And fall dead arrows in the white abyss. 
Sometimes the deep a serpent monster seems, 
In this, now that tough muscle taught to writhe, 
And then to puff and bulge and hiss and dart 
Dismembered tongues of snow made changing fire 
Against the warm spring sun. Again, a giant, 
Interminable in his awful length, 
Vain beats his liquid legs on the stern stone 
And ever as he struggles more and more 
In moving, pinioned stubbornness of strength, 
The more the strange beads blossom from his 

brow 



22 



To teach no surcease of his woe or will 

Come, love, the colors and the movements mad 
Have thronged so swift the never-swerving eye 
That now our rock rides phantom-oared to sea, 
All turmoil stilled and we alone disturbed. 
Hence let us deafly turn upon our way 
Into the cloistral aisles of towering trees, 
To where wild violets grow both bitter blue 
And fragrant saffron bolder than her mate. 
Be these our quest and with them we immure 
Jocosely-preaching Jack in his fresh church, 
And gentle-breathed anemones whose cheeks 
From purply chill oft warm to pink delight 
When e'er yon thrush-throat challenges the ear. 
Mid these no trillia for too suddenly 
Their snowy pennons droop in sick decay 
And grieve our cheerier train — so let them go! 
Yet let us add these fern-stems delicate. 
These will we carry from our holiday 
With that one thrush strain haunting memory, 
These are our story from the thunder's breast: 
Bud and bright blossom from the moil of waves. 



23 



THE DEATH OF KEATS 

"Severn, has the nurse gone ? Two days ago 
And sick ? I hope she has less pain than I 
Here in my breast, empty but filled with fire. 
Don't think me strange, dear Severn, but when I 
First wake from sleep I like so well to talk. 
Last night before I went at length to sleep — 
Midnight at least, I think — I saw your face, 
Your open eyes on me, your love inquiring, 
And I passed quickly to my happy dreams 
(For all my dreams are happy, Severn, happy) ; 
Not that I quite forget the daily ache, 
But I am calm. After that Alfieri, 
'I have no solace, all my sweet is grief,' 
No written word of poet has more charm. 
Yes, I'll obey: I will not tire myself; 
Don't worry, Severn, — there's so little left. 
I say my happy dreams — I call this happy : 
I seemed in Hampstead on an autumn morning, 
One of the kind when the sun's red all day; 
I carried in my hand a little book 
And slowly walked across a field quite barren. 
My little book seemed heavier each step, 
And when I reached a near-by wooded spot, 
I sat me down and listened to the birds. 
They must have lulled me to a sleep in sleep, 
For on a sudden I awoke and rose 
To go without my book, without my burden, 
When a voice gently called me : 'John ?' I paused 
But never turned : I knew the voice was hers. 
She touched my arm — I feel the very place — 
And when she came quite near, eyes questioning, 
Her letter that I never dared to read 
Returned to mind while she in mild rebuke 
Said, with forgiving hand: 'I have been wait- 
ing': 

24 



There lies my life and all that I have done. 

They never scared me, Severn, with abuse : 

I knew that better souls than mine were scourged ; 

But none have been more certain of their aim. 

And yet for all the life that might be mine 

If I recovered, I am filled with horror; 

For I have seen so long ago, so long, 

This day, and why my friends were overkind ! 

I love them all ;• one woman, too, I love. 

I gave the world my all, ill mixed with good 

Just like myself, just human in it all, 

And wronged both ways — too much of praise and 

blame. 
You know that epitaph you took from me? 
Be sure I never meant an idle wish 
For tardy fame, only I feel the world 
Cares little for the best a fellow gives. 
Severn, lift me! I want to say it all. 
Ah, Severn, all the love of friends can scarce 
Atone for this, the brutal, killing truth : 
How much good willingly the world foregoes, 
How, work your mightiest, it passes by. 
But they to me were beautiful, those moods, 
Complete in nothing, merely fragments all. 
Severn, I worry you. You shake your head? 
You can't paint much these days — I know, I 

know. . . . 
Well, I can't last much longer. . . .Lift me up! 
Severn, don't leave me: I shall die to-day." 



25 



TWO VIEWS OF A PORTRAIT 

"Perhaps you never heard her name, good sir, 
Although you wonder they have hung her here 
In sight of connoisseurs and all the dull 
Who come (with catalogue) to look and like, 
Or scan and sneer. Yet she was native-born, 
A plant our own fond city bred and kept. 
Suppose, sir, I, mere guide and hanger-on, 
Should tell, as one who knew her well and long, 
Her history; this day and all your days 
Thereafter would be scant to sate your eyes. 
Suppose I told you — you in the sleek clothes 
And perfect gloves and gleaming turret hat, 
A man of the grand w T orld I know but half — 
How many clutched damnation from her eyes ; 
Suppose I hinted how her hair made drunk 
The other many; how her gait stopped short 
The hurrying brokers and the men of trade; 
How just one turn of the lithe neck toward you 
And your quick body writhed as \n a coil; 
How when she spoke in certain tragedies, 
The aesthete lived lrjxurious in sound 
Nor cared for memmg of the utterance; 
Suppose, in short, I glancingly described 
A second Helen, witching trull and wonder, 
A woman whom the world both in her day 
And after she is dead, feels hunger for, 
Who fills the musings of a million monks, 
Rakes, poets, girls, dreamers, and awe-struck 

mothers ; 
Why, then, sir, I should see (as now I see!) 
Your eye dilate, your breath come short, your 

veins 
Bulge out in rapture of this beauteous monster. 
It is the flesh, the ribald source of spirit 
I touch when I contrive your fascination 

26 



By lying of the finest woman soul 

God ever breathed sweet breath in and made 

human. 
Good sir, I lie not if I say no stone 
In all the town but is more sanct she lived ; 
No bawd but saw the way to second honor ; 
No thief but saw his pelf too cheap to hold ; 
No cheat, no fraud, no lying tongue that dared 
That calm, grey eye and went on as before. 
But why prate on? I see you anxious, bored, 
Impatient to behold next vivid splash, 
Forget our modern saint and all her works. 
You sigh that I have done. Just so the world, 
Methinks, when that so true a woman died, 
Sighed a long sigh of genuine relief, 
So high her spirit, so severe the smart 
Of her free life among the underlings!" 

AUTUMN NIGHT 

It is no time for brooding on the past 

And calling heavy cares to vex our souls: 

Benignant are the stars in the cool night ; 

The air is full of sleep and happy dreams; 

And mysteries are faring uncontrolled. 

How regularly chirp the crickets, thick 

In the sere grass, as if just so the throb 

And cess of the big Mother-heart they marked! 

There is no moon; but where she hides I guess, 

For harvest is upon us and no beams 

Cold, isolate, and virginal, content 

Us for our work in these unwonted hours. 

She must new splendors borrow of the sun, 

A fresh and ruddy face and pleasant eyes ; 

Therefore she tarries from these fields and hills 

And therefore are the solemn stars benignant. 

In such a night as this I love the fields. 



27 



Not the grave forest with its beasts and shades, 

But the clean, lowly fields all in their sleep 

Swayed like the sea and telling their meek dreams. 

The world in meditation mirrored lies 

In these calm fields, these level, dreaming fields. 

Sorrow and sin and woe and discontent 

Have tasted poppy for a space, and spirits 

Are strangers to the pain and strife of noon. 

Only the bells will never hush the voice, 

But from their fearless tongues drop one by one 

Irrevocable down the long, deaf dark 

The syllables of unremembered words. 

A peevish hound, awakened, bays reply; 

Another, smaller, echoes thin agreement. 

The great bell answers not and all is still. 

If this were now the end of the whole earth, 

The sleeping fields composed no more to wake, 

And that one stroke the passing-bell of life! 

The calm of the dead earth would be so blessed 

And whispers so run angel to the woods 

As now this breeze, like winnow of wide hands, 

Over the plains of heaving rest sweeps on 

With benediction and sweet ministry. 



THE CALL 

Once more the wide, white world with timid 

spires 
Against the sky no faintest cloud obscures; 
Above, riding the calm air, glory-crowned 
Looks the white moon upon the whiter earth. 
It is a spectral time to move alone 
O'er fields untracked as air; to give an ear 
To pressing silences ; to feel the chill 
Of the far north invade the hollow breast. 
With some such majesty and awful calm, 



28 



Methinks, when utterance runs pale behind 

The glancing guess, will come the trumpet's call. 

No harsh blare scaring sea and earth and air 

And dealing far destruction mightily 

O'er crying multitudes on sudden knees ; 

But softly, clearly, universally, 

Like fall of snow or voice of distant bells 

Over a level plain. And there will be 

No tumult of the guilty, dead or quick; 

No judge with thundering charge against the 

damned ; 
No upward sweep of devils toward their prey: 
We in our cerements wasted quite to dust, 
Wearing no semblance of the things we were, 
Will summon back the soul from some warm star 
And wake as children wake out of sweet sleep 
Beneath the kiss upon their eyes; once more 
The wide, white world will briefly know our 

touch. 
The moonlight and the snow above our beds 
We shall put by as children coverlets ; 
And we shall rise each into what he would 
And what is fair, the dreamer to his dream, 
Lover to love, and singer to his song. 
And they who wrought not in this mortal world, 
Alone spent soul with body, these shall sleep : 
The blessed spirits' passing on will be 
Beyond their wakeless drowse, nor will they 

grieve 
More than one slumbering who neither knows 
Nor heeds the marvel near his lidded eyes. 



29 



SEA-PIECE 

We had begun to sip our air again 
And laugh upon our Indian summer come, 
Hear thunder clap his wings across wide skies, 
Watch clouds heap foam-globes in the whitening 

noon, 
Listen for song-birds, muse at leafless trees, — 
When suddenly the blustering North his blast 
Rang out o'er earth and the quick-tempered sea. 
Oh, I am glad one power dares his scourge ! 
When trees do bend and works of men bow down, 
Tremble and totter and their brows are wreathed 
With waste and desolation of the wrecker, 
My heart leaps for the sea that loves to fight. 
And I rejoice that when the wind on wave 
Drives scoop and scoop into that valorous breast, 
She hurls the hard brine bravely in his teeth 
And for each wound springs but more fiercely up 
And seizes the quick monster by the throat 
And fastens wildly with her frothy fangs 
Until he howls and begs for mercy, runs 
Like craven cur to land where he may rage 
With large impunity. Woe to the soul 
That dares to trust his craft to fighting sea 
And gale ! They who have seen the fray have been 
Accounted impious and worthy death. 
Only the voices of the night confess 
The story when the sea and gale engage. 
Amid wild days of changeful, wintry months 
When the cold creeps even through the soul and 

stings 
You into anger, then the thought grows proud 
Of the strong sea that waits the word of none 
But deals as hard as the rough-knuckled North. 



30 



THE FALL OF THE DAMNED 
BY RUBENS 

A light shot life into my heavy sleep 
And I arose and stood uncertainly 
Upon the vagrant, mid-air rock, my bed. 
Bound with the light ran unfamiliar voices 
Of pain and sharp distress, endless despairs. 
So swiftly coursed the white and dread confusion 
That I gazed long distinguishing no shape 
And hearing clearly none but unknown cries. 
Then, as I stared and felt mine eyelids taut 
As string upon a bow and felt my sight 
Dart keen with utter pangs out into space, 
I saw the reeling earth her uncapped tombs 
Disgorging, lighted by the wrath of God. 
Nor vexless frames and shadows of our forms 
But fleshly as they ended in their sin 
Down poured in bulky rain the horrid heaps. 
Even the air turned scourger as they passed 
And the calm angels smote remorselessly 
And the cold touch of justice pinched, as deep 
And deeper still they veered and flew and 

plunged. 
There were strong men who seized, as once in 

life, 
And girdled in their quickened arms of lust 
Their broad-hipped paramours as luscious fruit; 
And nuns with most penurious eyes were there, 
Abandoned to the vengeance of hot fiends 
Whose dagger-tongues stabbed their smooth 

bodies till 
They moaned in cheated semblance of a shriek. 
One woman with hair gold enough to craze 
Went toppled by a livid dragon-shape 
Whose bossy snout sped furrowing her breasts. 



31 



Deep in the gulf where leaped a passioned marl, 
The gaping figures of old nryths grew quick 
And laughed the length of their fierce, slimy 

jaws, — 
Here jumped to grasp a quivering buttock huge 
And there a wanton by her yielding thigh. 
And now the vast space yawned to thrice its size, 
Great mountains swung from out their funda- 
ments, 
Shifted, and hung by narrow necks along 
The gross, accursed earth, and took them tongues 
And with lamenting clangor thundered out 
Immortal penance to the howling damned. 
Therewith rang, too, the whelming ire of Him 
Who sits upon the heavenly throne to judge: 
To me most inarticulate His words, 
But visible a herald troop of flames 
Hissing and seething down like molten pillars 
Or like mad charioteers careering on, 
They issued, leveling the struggling horde 
And plashing as in hollow dissolution 
The mass of that corrupt, impure, defiled, 
Degraded flesh. Whereat when all the sea 
Had closed above the demons and the damned — 
Who lay in one inextricable web 
Of limbs and hair, closed jaws, and lewd 

embrace — 
Had soothed its fever into dimpling jets 
And these again had drawn their poutings level, 
The surface long was murmurous with moans : 
Again the protestations of remorse 
Muffled and clogged pulsed upward to the sky; 
The very instruments of torment seemed 
To learn the weary agony of death. 
There while I mused and utmost downward 

stared, 
My breath regained bade lift my flooded eyes, 



32 



And lo! where floated forth in idle ease 
The once filled earth, a vacant, dying star. 



OCTOBER 

It is the time when trees become severe 

For that the poignant frost all in one night 

Has burst the veins of every aging leaf 

And decked with gaudy death the silent scene. 

Oh for a sober pacing in the woods 

Paved with the chatter of the dead, dead spring! 

To halt in some sequestered, echoing haunt 

And watch the balanced drop of sibilant leaves 

Darkling the drooping sun. Then from the earth 

Where breed in hollows moist thin, noisome 

gnats, 
Lifts gradual like unto incense dank 
A cold and clammy mist, a veiling chill. 
When thus among the trees I meditate 
And in the solemn woodland aisles give ear, 
I seem to breathe a mediaeval air : 
Monastic mysteries and gorgeous altars, 
Relics of martyrs, heroes, saints, and kings 
Sow thick their precious dust within my mind — 
Rich as the pollen on a chance bee's thigh 
That starts strange blooms among the various 

meads. 
Ever I wait, nor long must wait in vain 
For just a catch from some stray, braver bird. 
And wdren his stout song diadems the dusk, 
I keep it treasured through the winter's rage 
Till skies do once more weep and buds are born 
And high o'er gentle grass the young clouds race. 



33 



MARY REPLIES 

"I, Mary, Virgin Mother of the Christ, 

Abide your questioning, O Zacharias, 

In every age henceforth forevermore, 

I dumb with marvel as with doubting, you. 

How will you credit me, now, you who smiled 

Incredulous on God's own Gabriel? 

What word will visit these my woman lips 

Persuading you who tranquil barred the force 

Celestial of that angelic voice? 

Immune of earth's confessional am I, 

Yet unto you as unto your sanct spouse 

I gladly bare the record of my soul. 

It was a balmy evening and we walked 

Under the bursting canopy of stars, 

Elizabeth and I, in mild discourse. 

There passed us on the highway one attired 

In raiment gorgeous from her sin, a girl 

Unknown, but in the company of one 

Who all his youth had loved too well the world. 

Whereat we wondered what could be her heart 

Where womanhood might never calmly dwell ; 

It was not gathered skirt to shun the taint 

That moved us, but the awed and dread respect 

Of self, disrupt and published, — common barter. 

And ere I slept that night I prayed to God 

And said: 'Father and Spirit, hidden far 

From eye and sense of us who fain would search 

Thy ways, look down with pity on Thy world. 

Let us not stray beyond Thy sweet recall 

As she whom we beheld to-night, the stranger. 

I ask not that Thou tell me quite the woe 

Of all who breathe, but O great Lifter-up 

Of those who bend beneath their scourging sins, 

Grant to the lowly, such as I, a part 

In comforting and aiding all who need.' 



34 



And then I slept; and, as I slept, I dreamed 
A shape, of feature indistinguished, stood 
Before me like a pillared flame, white, soft, 
And swaying. Like the whisper of a tree 
Where leaves and buds thrive murmurous in 

springtime 
With joy of their near message unto men, 
It sought mine ear and whispered : 'Fear thou 

not! 
Thy prayer God answers with his heart of 

hearts : 
I am His holy Spirit and I seek 
Thee out to make thee mother of His Son.' 
Whereat I shuddered and grew pale, then 

fevered, 
Rubbed my wild eyes, and strove to calm my 

brow, 
And then again I saw the white flame there 
And heard the Spirit voice run mellowing, 
Insinuating ardor with new peace. 
Once more he spake divinely musical 
And as a priest might speak in sacrifice 
To his own lamb which he devotes to God: 
'Bare white thy breast, O Mary, chosen heart, 
And as I pierce thy bosom, knowing pain, 
Cry not aloud, but with the issued blood 
Anoint thy brow in token of God's visit.' 
Thus it befell and so I crimsoned brow. 
And in the morning when I woke anew, 
My brow was clean, mine eyes wore wondrous 

light; 
And through my soul coursed fervor of my love 
With certain faith that I should bless the world. 
And once — praise to sweet Jesus, my dead son, 
Who lives and reigns with God the Father aye — 
Once more I saw that woman in the flesh 
Come from the Pharisee, come radiant 



35 



From washing with warm tears Christ's weary 

feet 
And wiping them with lavishment and spread 
Of her own glorious hair. So good is God." 



THE UNKNOWN FACE 

"No, that I never change, my friend; always 
It looks down from the height I hallowed it. 
Looks down as might on maid her virgin saint. 
It is a likeness: whose I never knew 
Nor fain would know, so angel has it been ; 
'Tis of a man who wore a woman's face, 
Which is as if one said: 'Some perfect soul!' 
I well remember how I found it first: 
The rainy winter night ; my sodden shoes ; 
The dim light near a dirty stall whereon 
Lay heaped in vilest kinship, king and lout, 
Hero and murderer, poet and cheat; 
And how a penny made me lord of it ; 
And how I guarded it beneath my coat; 
And how thereafter soon I framed it rich 
And hung it high to garland it with gaze. 
Never the white hair shows less silverly, 
Nor less in kindness droop the sweet, soft eyes. 
See the far-scenting nose and the thin chin, 
The wrinkles near the lips as if some ripple 
Of laughter found immortal charactery. 
One who saw far and deep in thought's demesne 
And lived with no less charity mid men ; 
Lived, sir, I say, for to that mirrored eye 
I dare not lift a trifling, worldly glance 
Without a sudden breastward pain therefrom. 
Am I too fond ? Dream I beyond men's wont ? 
God makes for earth but one face like that face, 
The others in his heaven sing to Him !" 

36 



BEYOND 

When with the thoughts of what we are to be 
We move in company and gently trace 
A way through meads of speculation pied 
With many-colored lifted hopes, at last 
There rests on beauty of the brightest joy 
A wistfulness, a mark almost defeat. 
We shall awake out of our ancient sleep 
And we shall stand glad face to face revealed 
Before the spirits we have loved on earth 
In fleshly sojourn or in life of mind. 
Yet for all masters of the mighty past, 
Methinks, too much of worship may have changed 
Our nearness and too much of distant love 
Have chilled our earthly ardor. These are souls: 
Their names and unknown lives were on our lips 
A kind of prayer, and death with awe them 

crowned. 
Still would our younger spirit-hands be loth 
To touch our sudden-wise contemporaries. 
I know that I should fain see those I loved 
On earth and in the flesh, those who loved me ; 
The grander ones have never known my moods, 
Tyrant despairs, bold leaps of hope, strong pains ; 
They never knew me and forgave my faults, 
And brooked impatient flashings and reserves; 
They have not wept with me, and their warm 

hands 
I never have delayed within mine own, 
Half-shaming that my manhood knew such love; 
Their eyes are bright, but not with human tears, 
And all their ways are of another time. 
Not with the angels and the shining host 
Be I enrolled forever mate and comrade, 
But rather with the struggling few I know, 
With whom I fought in hate and whose dear love 



37 



Cheered courage in my weakling veins to fight. 
Still would I fight my fate, still ardent love 
My new-dreamed charge ; but firm with holy fear 
That, when I pleaded pause and faintly begged 
For craven peace, enervate hymns, and bliss, 
I then deserved no meed but this defeat — 
Retired from fray because my spirit ebbed. 
For the one thought that dares walk straight to 

God 
And all the sanct and storied hero-band 
Is that we will to make us worthy peers, 
Nor ever of ourselves deem summit gained, 
Meed due, applause hurtling across the skies. 



38 



POETAE APOLOGIA 

"Sirs, masters, judges, you have summoned me 

And here I stand to answer for my life. 

You charge me with a treasonable crime — 

The song I wrote about the prince's right 

To bid men 'gainst their wiser wills do battle. 

If I must sing, you say, the song should be 

Not so infectious in the lilt and thought 

As make ten thousand men drop down their arms 

And shout for craven peace against their lord. 

Why, sirs, I have been all my life the man 

You see before you now, an obscure poet 

For the past forty years marrying rhymes 

With strenuous endeavor toward the truth. 

Chance thrusts a noted theme and from my town, 

My Marricour, low-lying by the sea, 

I, hitherto unknown, — a mere chaff-thing 

Kicked by the breath of vilest artisan — 

Rise a majestic stock to threat a prince. 

I am the same, 'tis you who suffer change. 

Compound of the sea's wit and th' idle sand, 

I weave a miracle of treachery, 

Truth from the prattling shell a mere fool finds 

And listens to and hands unto his neighbor, 

And so it passes on until a town 

Revolts against the settled state it knew, 

Raps a prince soundly on his tender ears, 

Makes buzz his ministers, and wins a name. 

What mockery is this to bid me plead 

Against myself, beg paltry breath, ask just 

A little longer watch you strut and prance, 

Armed in your travesty of Right and Law? 

Sirs, ye who would I call you patriots, — 

The name I sicken at — ye are not leal ! 

Ye are the traitors, I, the loyal son! 

The land we live in is no petty plot 



39 



Of inland ignorance and hollow vales: 

The great seas touch our strands, all the wild 

winds 
Converse above our cities, and the sun 
Looks on no coast but in it we have share; 
With such a fatherland, such a high fate, 
You may not with injustice stop the breath 
Of the most idle bird heart-sick with song. 
The deed that is not just belongs not here; 
And he who counsels doing of that deed — 
Be he a peasant or a crowned prince— 
With aim to mask it by his country's name, 
Is not a patriot, but a traitor, sirs! 
Pardon my passion and my heated words. 
If I have wounded one of you, believe 
It was not out of hate but out of love. 
I love my land ; she is so throned within 
My soul that gladly would I die for her. 
I would not have her stained with impious blood ! 
This noblest nation owes the most to God : 
Her citizens are priests ; her streets are holy ; 
Her commerce is the law of love and peace ; 
Her homes are temples which we may not blot; 
Therefore, dissuade the prince, make now your- 
selves 
The victims of your wrath toward other men 
And judge whether a poet may not dream, 
And, dreaming, tell the truth to waking men. 
But if it be the prince's will prevail 
And I denounced a traitor to my land, 
When I am dead, let those ten thousand men 
I counseled disobey the princely hest, 
Scoop me a deep bed in the shifting sand 
That my good mother sea may sway my bones 
And sing her endless song — grand poetess !— 
To mine unheeding ears and my cold brain 
Which once she caught and swept to ecstasy, 



40 



Thrilling my lawless tongue to utterance. 
Sirs, I perceive you smile upon my flowers, — 
But from my soul they spring and they are 
yours." 



41 



TWO BALLADS 



GRADLON 

A Breton Legend 

"Yvonne, bethink thee of the end 

And of our common love ; 
Where Gradlon keeps the key thou knowst, 

Haste where he dreams above!" 

Thus Bernadet to fair Yvonne, 

King Gradlon's only child; 
And breathing deep she held his eyes 

Close to her own eyes wild. 

"Long since I promised thee this boon, 

To seize the silver key, 
Unlock the sluice near Penmarch Rock 

And free the fettered sea; 

But oh, my heart is full of fear, 

My hand a woman's hand ; 
And whom we fain the sea would choke, 

Loves me above his land." 

"Thou lovst not me, Yvonne, I swear — 

I swear it on my faith; 
Else wouldst thou rid me of thy sire 

And make great Ys a wraith." 

"My city Ys I love but so 

As were she a good nurse ; 
Yet would I know by what foul deed 

She merits this thy curse." 

"Not one word more, untoward wench! 

Myself will do the deed : 
While he lies murdered by my hand, 

Ys shall glut carrion greed." 



45 



"List to me, Bernadet, I pray, — 

Herein am I thy peer; 
I spake to try thee in thy love, 

Thy life to me is dear. 

It is the true wish of my heart 

One day to be thy queen ; 
That I will serve thee faithfully, 

This night it shall be seen." 

"Bring, then, the key and the treasure-box," 

Brake in base Bernadet; 
"Bran swore me true to loose the lock 

And boat across the Bay. 

By the north hall where we oft have waged 

Sweet riot and wars of wine, 
There will I wait thee. Haste thee now 

While the sickle moon doth shine." 

The moon was paling King Gradlon's face 
When another face came between; 

The face of the ingrate, wanton Yvonne, 
A woman who would be queen. 

Wake not, great King, lest thou shalt hear 

The sound of treasure and key, 
And the hurry of stealthy stepping away, 

Away to the waiting sea. 

"Here am I, Bernadet," she breathed, 

"It is a realm I hold!" 
"Then, he is dead?" "He was so white, — 

And his hands were both stone cold;" 



4 6 



"An he were dead, there were small need 

The city of Ys to drown." 
"Then, greater the need now Bran be leal 

And we make Quimper Town!" 

"Hist, Bran! to the sluice — and fare thee well: 

God curse thee if thou fail ! 
Now for our steeds in the court below, 

Hence to the Arre Vale !" 

A white face fronted his face of flame, 

A clean sword smote his throat: 
"I dreamed, Bernadet!" King Gradlon cried, 

"Rot there in a redder coat!" 

| 
And the voice of a strange monk burst between: 

"Saint Corentin am I. 
I bid thee mount for I hear the sea 

Rise with a hungry cry!" 

King Gradlon gathers the wan Yvonne; 

The holy monk leads the way ; 
Mid the lifting flood they are skirting the line 

Of long Douarnenez. 

King Gradlon's grey won the side of the monk 
Who rode a steed blacker than night ; 

The sweep of the sea sang about the smooth ears 
Like rain of a lash's might. 

Their nostrils fought with the smart of the brine ; 

Their chests grew deep with strength; 
In the race for the life of the King they loved 

White sweat crested over their length. 



47 



They fretted the rocks of the rugged shoals; 
They whipped the foiled hollows to froth; 
They hammered the sand and they wasted green 
things 

And up leaped light as a moth. 

•. 

King Gradlon's grey out of very love 
Will never gain Quimper Town; 

He stumbles" and staggers and shakes his wild 
neck 
And the King with a kiss leans down. 

Like a goad it stung the hard flesh of the brute 
And he plunged with maddened fire; 

But his burden asked more than his brawn could 
give 
And his heart held bodements dire. 

'Twas then at no cess of the hounding tide 
The black-mounted monk drew near ; 

And he seized from Yvonne the treasure-box old 
And hissed in King Gradlon's ear: 

"The dam of all devils rides with thee, great 
King! 

She burdens and breaks the grey back; 
The wanton Yvonne is thy curse and thy death, 

Her body and soul are hell-black. 

Hurl her from thee, O King, cast her into the 
sea, 
The sea that will never ask why! 
It is thine, mighty Gradlon, to choose thine own 
fate 
And a trull of thy loins to deny! 



4 8 



I am Saint Corentin who speak, 

I fed thee at Ploare: 
With an only fish I gave thee a feast ; 

I healed thy hunting-scar. 

And now I fain would aid thine arm 

Thy kingdom firm to hold; 
And this to save thou here must heed : 

Destroy Yvonne the bold!" 

Lower into the deepening sea 

Began to sink the steed; 
And shrill the pale Yvonne did shriek, — 

Such woe was her own meed. 

Again Saint Corentin drew near: 
' "O Gradlon, purge thy fame! 
Kill the vile leman! With base Bernadet 
She did the deed of shame!" 

Snow-white as the hair of Gradlon the Great 

Then waned that kingly face: 
As a bitter thing spewed, the King cast off 

Yvonne with no word of grace. 

The steed upreared like a bodied dart 

And skimmed the tardy waves ; 
And the monk followed close with the treasure- 
box, — 

Behind lay two villainous knaves. 



King Gradlon the Great lived many a year 
Thereafter in Quimper Town; 

And no sound of Ys aye troubled his soul, 
None menaced his well-saved crown. 



49 



Sometimes at night the childless King 
On the shore would wander, they say, 

As a sad song swam from the midst of the sea 
Over Douarnenez. 

A song of sin with no thought of ruth; 

A song of the fever of guilt; 
A song of desire forgetful of kin; 

A song of a drunken hilt. 

And from the shore the king returns 

Each time a whiter King; 
And the story he hears in the wild sea-song 

Makes Yvonne an undying sting. 

And once from the shore no King returns 

Nor ever a message or word; 
But the wild song out of the heart of the sea 

Is dumb as a stricken bird. 

Long, long they watched and waited for him 

And fasted in pious dread : 
But of all, I wis, than Saint Corentin 

None better knew him dead. 



50 



THE HEIR 

Elise my mother — her Count Pasquin won 
And let her die at yonder tower's base 

Among the fallen leaves, herself a leaf 

Blown hellward from God's spreading tree of 
grace. 

Me she abandoned one cold autumn night, 
Me like a burden dropped, a thing of shame. 

Old Anna found me as she drave her sheep, 
Gave me her old flat breast, gave me a name. 

One day I tripped upon a grave and fell, — 
Prone on whose grave but hers within the park ? 

It was the day I walked hand close in hand 
With Ariette, my love, till envious dark. 

I knew she was the daughter of the tall, 

Grand, awful Count whom all obeyed in dread ; 

But also I was ware she loved my face 

And of degree no brooding vexed my head. 

So life was sweet until they deemed it well 
To save her ere too dangerous desire; 

And vain were all young tears and secret trysts : 
The Count would have her safe from every 
fire. 

And he was cheated — God be praised for that! 

The burned-up beauty of her they brought back 
And solemn buried in a golden chest 

And covered all the vault with white and black. 

Purple and ruddy flowers had been my choice: 
First, fleur-de-lis, and passionate rose-bud next; 

I should have pressed the birds chant litanies 
Nor found in any eaten book a text! 



51 



Then, when poor Anna saw me dying so, — 
Inch after inch subsiding to the bone, 

The luster of the eye leap fitfully — 

She said: "Be strong. The truth must now 
be known." 

How Pasquin sought Elise in her rude home 
And won her to his pleasure and her woe, 

She there rehearsed as once to her Elise — 
So soon to vanish like an April snow. 

Not one word that she spake but gave more 
strength ; 
I felt hot life swell my triumphing veins ; 
And with amending days my spirit teemed 
With aims, as vines with clusters from rich 
rains. 

He was alone and reading from a tome 

That thrilled with many a deed of ancestor, 

As I, a spurned shoot of that selfsame stock, 
Made entry unannounced and closed the door. 

He took the danger of my forward gaze : 
The pistol aimed out of his hand I hurled ; 

And ere we ceased discourse, it stood agreed 
That I, acknowledged master, dared the 
world. 

i 

Pasquin? Ay, he is dead. I am the last. 

Elise and Ariette and Anna dead, 
In whom I lived my life, to these me, too, 

Some autumn with its leaves will shake and 
shed. 



52 



EIGHT SONNETS 



JUDGED 

Methought my mother-country, she whose 

fame 
For freedom grew with every morning-glow, 
Stood where they stand alike, both friend and foe, 
Before the eyes that search and show all blame. 
I saw Egyptian Ramses blush with shame, 
And Xerxes from this shore with panic go, 
And matchless Caesar pale at swordless woe, 
And many more of late though equal name, 
Hurry to dim retreat. And when He heard 
My young, sweet mother lift her great soul up 
And proud recount the story of her life, 
Those eyes rained fire, the wed lips woke to strife : 
"O child, less taint to me that mortal cup 
Of Christ my son than thou of broken word." 



SHAKSPERE 

Not like a pilgrim faring to one shrine 
Whereat by dropping knee in faithful awe 
All the cold sin of soul begins to thaw 
And rise and runnel cheek with purging brine; 
Nor like a close-mewed nun in rapture fine 
Waiting the coming Christ and the new Law, 
Watching and waiting, grudging breath to draw 
Lest human sound disturb the soul's incline 
From peak to rarer peak, — not so, great Seer, 
Theeward fare I or wait a mystery, 
For thou art master minstrel of all ways 
That know the press of human foot, thy praise 
Is that the good thou wouldst not deify, 
And that the ill drew from thy lips no sneer. 



55 



SOUL-VISION 

In Eden, night. Beyond its pale the twain, 
Close hand in hand, bright from the barrier light 
Sequent and waning, wandered speechless quite, 
And in their broken souls an alien strain. 
Virgin of blame and virgin of love's rain 
The hours of tardy exile went while sight 
And sleep their combat waged with equal might. 
Upon the hard earth Eve from very pain 
Slow fell and slept ; but Adam watched .and lo ! 
From out his breast there burst a white-winged 

bird. 
Starward she aimed and found her airy nest; 
But not for long: wide-eyed he traced her quest 
From star to star with each new height upstirred 
Till the wings died above the morning-glow. 



BEETHOVEN 

These are not meant for thy slight fingers, child. 
Thy teacher's praise, the hall's applause I know; 
The rippling wrist I follow with its flow 
Of conquered wonder till my mind is wild. 
A mere girl still, all unrebellious, mild, 
Untutored in the woes that make us grow, 
An unsunned flower, bred of very snow, 
Unscathed of fortune's thong and unbeguiled 
By faithless friends, thou canst not dimly hear 
The surge and beat of that tempestuous soul. 
Wait till thou hast the secret of a cloud 
Or wearest thy grief lone amid the crowd, 
Then from thy touch shall in grand thunders 

roll 
The agonies of this mad-chanting Lear. 



56 



AFTER-BLOOM 

As when in some sequestered, cool recess 

Of arching bough and aimless drooping vine 

Within a wildwood holy to the trine 

Of Hope, Desire, Surprise, there falls a cess 

Of wandering and in a green caress 

Of air and earth you sink and all resign 

Save that one glance that in its loose confine 

Brings to your doubting hand your heart to bless, 

One tardy violet ; so, love, are grown 

The wildwood hearts of us by love made sweet, 

Wherein, each wandering a thousand times 

Amid the balm or rigor of all climes, 

There cannot fail half-dreaming eye to meet 

Some tardy violet till now unknown. 



VERGIL 

A mere pale boy, who, watching docile sheep 
On mead and easy upland o'er and o'er, 
Wove many songs with young Sicilian lore 
The while his spirit with increasing sweep 
Longed to be where seven hills in starry sleep 
Saw T done the dauntless deeds, saw spent the gore, 
Saw drop the vanward bird and sink who bore, 
Until one master stemmed the battles' heap 
And reigned a prince of peace, — the high renown 
That mother-city of all cities born 
To celebrate and rumor through all time 
With the grand pathos of her bright, dead prime, 
Was that pale boy's, whose very glories mourn 
As if they knew immortal rides no crown. 



57 



DUSK 

\ 

Light dim enough to limn the waning blur 
Of waxing buds and leaves against the sky; 
Wind low enough to be the little sigh 
Of fledgling spent with teaching wings to whirr; 
Here where I look and listen not a stir 
Of air or thought but seems to solve and die 
Into the seas o'f calm that round me lie 
Like languid sorceresses melting myrrh 
About my yielding temples. How Thy years, 
Great God, for all the gradual step and slow, 
Are sudden when we muse upon them dead 
And miss the precious who to them are wed! 
Thy world is written and re-writ with woe : 
A palimpsest tear-cleansed for riper tears. 



GLORY 

When nights are moonless and the air serene 
I love with questioning eye unsatisfied 
To gaze upon the stars as on they glide 
In metric silence over lives unclean; 
Or feel with veiled eye a dimmer sheen 
Steal through the brain and fling its portals wide 
To unseen worlds that from the sight fain hide 
Of armed astronomer with vision keen. 
On him I muse who warned in days afar 
How star from star in glory differeth, — 
Holding the pathos, too, quite close to me: 
The nameless ripples of earth's human sea — 
Till answer whispers with an angel's breath: 
"Inglorious to earth, but yet — a star!" 



5* 



VARIOUS POEMS AND SONGS 



THE MEADOW-LARK 

The young sun runs above the field; 

The dun clouds wheel and yield; 

A happy omen, — ah, but hark! 

The meadow-lark. 

Like a spring in barren sands, 

English word in alien lands, 

Sudden clasp of parted hands, 

Instant sweet, 

But fleet 

As an arrow that aims in vain 

And this side dies with pain, 

I have heard him this many a year 

Sadder each time, for I miss the cheer 

You say is in his song. 

What will the meadow-lark sing to me 

As I listen and wait through the morning long? 

A pensive strain of a heart half-free, 

The matins of a walking bird, 

A peripatetic prayer till heard ; 

Monotonously real and bare, 

How purely it essays the air 

Aspiring to win God's ear! 

Ah, had he learned in his childhood days 

To find him food in the air's wide ways 

Amd mount and dive and hurry and fear 

And wheel and circle and drop and career, 

Another song would thrive in his throat: 

A wild, uncontrolled, strange, yearning note, 

A bud of the air as unconfined 

As the wing of the searching, homeless wind. 

But see him walk above the ground 

(As if a bird should learn, forsooth, 

The hum-drum dale and make-believe mound 

Of a bounded field of a son of man!) : 

His birth and age, his years and youth 

61 



Are spent in looking down to scan ; 

His singing he ends before he began. 

Yet for this very failure, friends, 

I love the meadow-lark: 

He has no speculations vague, 

He apes no spirit's daily plague, 

He weeps not o'er his soul's poor spark, 

No vain ambition's dream he vends ; 

But he sings of the earth he knows, 

Of the crop and the possible blight, 

Of the genial sun and withering drouth, 

Of rain and remembered snows; 

And in the dawn he hints of night, 

And, soberest fool by divinest right, 

Shows kisses are hardly food for the mouth. 

By heaven's decree he has learned the need 

Of hunting on earth for the bug and the seed 

And singing and walking and praying away 

Through the lovely hours of gold or grey, 

"Give us this day our daily bread," 

To me he shows the wiser head, 

For the human cry and the call of the earth 

Has mellowed in him his natural mirth, 

Has tamed the perilous itch of wing 

And the throat all ache to sing and sing. 

And though he w T alks upon the ground, 

I would my meadow-lark were crowned 

By the grace of God a very king, 

While over his head a viewless thing 

Writing a cirque with the wake of wing, 

Co-partner but clothed in undying fame, 

His brother, akin not in blood but in name, 

That English angel still chanted his dream ! 

The young sun runs above the field; 
The dun clouds ivheel and yield: 
A happy omen, — ah, hut hark! 
The meadoiv-lark. 

62 



SONG 

On the snow 

I can show 

Where delicate feet have been : 

In their traces 

Smile new faces, 

Violets and their kin. 

It is Spring. 

Come to bring 

Buds and birds and gentler air; 

Who will hold her, 

Woo, control her, 

Keeping earth so happy, so fair? 

Under the sun 

Only one 

Shall bid her fold the yearning wing: 

The true lover 

He shall discover 

And chain with a kiss eternal Spring! 



63 



TWO GIRLS 

I. 

400 B. C. 

Her basket high with little loves, 

In the white sunshine, whiter far 

Sitteth quick-eyed Aglaia. 

Not mother Maia 

To her boy gave more prosperous star 

Than on this girl she of pure doves. 

How sweetly low she calls 

To Polydorides 

And from her knees 

With trembling choice doth seize 

And give one cherub for his halls! 

Aglaia, tell how long it was before, 

Thy basket bare, his garland graced thy door! 

II. 

1900 A. D. 

The level moon silvers my love and me, 

Her improvising at the muffled keys, 

And me interpreting at pensive ease 

A sunny city near the violet sea. 

Like some Aglaia dead 

Touching the loves her basket keeps, 

My love doth call from airy deeps 

Sweet cherubs into throbbing life. 

Awhile they babble and grow warm in strife, 

Anon they kiss and sinks each drowsy head. 

At last her touch is lyric with one song — 

My cherub of her choosing from her throng! 



64 



SONG 

I walked into my garden green 

Ere flowers bloom : 
A hidden fragrance charmed the scene 

Like whispering gloom. 

Opening lips and haunting hair 

And utterless words 
In faint waldmeister breath so rare 

Flew up like birds- 



HOROSCOPE 

Read me not stars how they stared 
When that she first drew breath; 
Read me her eyes and I know T 
Sweet life or the bitter of death. 

Death — not the ceasing to breathe 
Life — not the taking of air; 
Spirit that vainly desires, 
Dies in the birth of despair. 



65 



LINES TO A WOOD-THRUSH 

When' bare boughs in the springtime hide their 

buds 
And swell with lustihood of gathered year, 
When the blind brook runs feeling many ways, 
Sweet April month has spent her timely tear. 

A laughter-gendered tear of grace and joy 
To cheer the timid orphans into light 
And drench their waiting lips with weird per- 
fumes 
And teach them veil their eyes against the night. 
When greens the slender path within the wood 
I listen to the triple melody 

The wood-thrush coy sends mystic, alien, swift, 
As if a bud burst into song near by. 



APRIL 

Wooed of masters Sun and Dew, 
Which to wed she never knew; 
One day she would smile on one, 
Next day frown and bid him run. 
Sun would say: "How cold is Dew! 
He is not the mate for you!" 
Dew would say: "How false is Sun! 
Of his kiss are flowers undone!" 
So she pledged with kisses light 
Sun by day and Dew by night, 
Yet each day to vex the two 
Sends his sister traitor Dew. 



66 



SONG 

There's a voice in the song I sing, ' 
I call to it singing with mine: 

Like a bird, bereft, on the wing, 
I yearn to thee, spirit divine. 

Thou art all the soul of me said, 
The one tone, the adequate phrase; 

I touch but thy lips — thou art fled: 
I am earth, a mere creature of days. 

THE HUNTERS 

Here in the snow is the trace, 
Chill is the spring sun's face; 
The hunters sing as they go. 
(But what of her, the doef) 

The air is intoxication 
And light gives eye inspiration. 
The hunters sing as they go. 
(But what of her, the doef) 

Almost the quarry outworn 
Will offer her body heart-torn. 
The hunters sing as they go. 
(But what of her j the doef) 

The beast, men say, is for this, 
Born for a bullet's kiss. 
The hunters sing as they go. 
(But what of her , the doef) 

Nor less in the city ways cold 
The hunters are hunting with gold 
Shall God not beg to know: 
"What of her, the doef" 



6 7 



WARUM? 

(A Reading of Schmnann.) 

Do you remember one retreat 
Where stream and glancing sunlight meet ? 
The mill-wheel then had ceased to know 
The driving waters years ago ; 
And, as we tarried, even then 
Long dead had lain the little glen ; 
Beneath the vaulting trees the light, 
One mellow amber to the sight, 
Seemed moving like a dimming dream 
Above the sward, along the stream, 
Among the moss upon the rock; 
There was no sound the peace to mock, 
No strident shriek, no meadow call 
Of tiny droves in grassy stall; 
Alone the water dared to speak 
In decent whispers low and meek 
As might a nun where one had died 
Who never knew the crucified ; 
The starry moss was all the flower 
That smiled in that funereal bower. 
I made a wild-ring of two sprays 
Strong-twisted in a thousand ways 
To cheat the pride of rounded gold 
That glows the same though love be cold. 
And you agreed and we were young 
And words were firstborn on the tongue . 
I speak as if you would reply; 
But well I know that till I die, 
Forsake the amber of the dream, 
Forget the whisper of the stream, 
I may not trace your spirit where 
It glorifies the hiding air; 
But of the wild-ring I may think 



68 



That girt your finger at the brink. 
Though tears be spent and anguish past, 
Ever the question at the last: 
If wisely works the Hand or not 
That takes the beauty, leaves the blot; 
That keeps old age a rebel still 
And murders youth to do Its will? 
Then the white angel face at night 
To smile in silence, render right, 
To teach the rebel mood to cease 
Since good is God, His will is peace. 



SONG 

Not that I miss the love you gave 
Ask I the spoken word, — 
Bird o' the bough may bind the soul 
With melody unheard. 

I know not the whence and the why, 
But only this is clear : 
How sweet the old confessing strain, 
Just this, "I love you dear!" 



QUEST 

Up, song, and find a melody, 
One in the wide world thine; 

Woo her until she needs must sigh, 
"Ah, love, would thou wert mine!" 

Thou hast no soul, thus lone, unwed; 

Thy life is but to die; 
But on her breast thy hidden head 

Wears immortality. 



6 9 



A THEME FROM CHOPIN 

(F sharp major impromptu.) 

Sweet, my love, in the autumn time 

When the lips are gone that kissed in prime, 

To hear slip, slip the dead, dry leaves 

And the doubting birds in the shelter of eaves. 

Sweet, my love, to drink the chill air, 

To lift one's eyes to old boughs that are bare, 

To wonder whither the crickets are fled 

Or what they can dream that they left unsaid. 

Sweet, my love, when the fruits are in, 
When the hands that plucked seem phantom-thin, 
That amid all changes, seasons, decay, 
With love in the heart no soul turns grey. 



AUGUST 

Runs no music from the trees, 

Song is drained to the lees ; 

Only from the blazing earth 

Chuckle-chant of cricket-mirth. 

On the sea young hurricanes 

Lade their wings with scourging rains; 

On the land the cyclones wheel 

And affrighted cities reel. 

Sirius with shifting glare 

Hurls pale, frantic stars through air. 

Fortunate the daily wane: 

Springtime's fervor is insane. 



7 o 



CITY SOUNDS 

A withered old woman of sixty or more 

{Hale her to bedlam and bury her there!) 
Sits over the way grinding o'er and o'er 
A poor old organ wheezy and sore. 

Her eyes are as dead as a seaside stone 

(Hale her to bedlam and bury her there!) 
There live in the organ three sounds alone 
To save the one tune from a dreary drone. 

A motherless maid? Bore she never a child? 
(Hale her to bedlam and bury her there!) 
An impostor, perhaps, with the town defiled? 
'Twas Christ, I think, who bade us be mild. 



SONG 



As flowers wait for the morn 

So I for thy face, 
Or sleeping or wistfully born 

By God's fair grace. 

As w T ater is hushed for the wind, 

I for thy foot's fall, 
Or bird for notes that are kind 

With love's quick call. 

I had slept with pain: 
At the thought of thee 

To his wings hath he ta'en, — 
Thou alone with me. 



7 1 



QUATRAINS 



APART 



One said : "I will not hurry with the throng; 
I would from this cold peak command the scene." 
An idle hope to sing a far-heard song, 
Nor grows he seer who watches overlong. 



THE REVEALER 

To those who sit in twilight of the mind 
When all the spirit questions, waits, and dreams, 
Comes he, the poet, healer of the blind, 
A faint star there, a hid moon here, to find. 



SHAKSPERE 

It is as if to others when they sought, 
Nature her wayward eyes aye turned aside; 
But when with careless gaze this rover came, 
Their eyes met silently, candid and wide. 



THE PIANIST 

The master said he played for us 
Of the marvelous twelve, eleven: 
The one he played for himself I know 
For I saw the glory of heaven. 



- 72 



SPRING RAINDROPS 

"In white we started on our way 
And whirled and eddied night and day; 
But when earth sang that dreamy air, 
In tears we fell amid her hair.' 1 



ODORS 

Some dead queen sleeping in her bridal clothes 
Which singing ringers wrought with daedal care : 
The very threads are sweet with breath of rose 
As if she lived a fragrant death. Who knows? 



SYMBOLS 

I saw a sea in fury, 
I saw a wreck-strewn shore: 
Saw I not love unmastered, 
Souls lost evermore? 



ON ONE OBSCURE 

Here let him lie, in this lone resting place 
Far from the roadway and its obscene dust: 
He loved not many, — here and there a face ; 
So, let him dream of them a little space. 



73 



FASCINATION 

The Snake speaks: 

I heard thee singing from afar, 
Bright master of the air! 
Let me not dare 
To dim a star. 

Along the hum-drum ground I yearned 
Rib-sore to make me thine. 
Might eyes but shine 
As that strain burned! 

My heart holds no swift-measured pain 
That God of snakes made birds, — 
Our dreams, your words, 
Our loss, your gain, — 

And yet I hiss no curse on fate, 
No love I fain entreat; 
Pity would meet 
My vile estate. 

If I distract, — I'll turn my head. . . . 
(Whew! Just in time I ran. 
No honest man 
To filch my bread.)" 



74 



SONG 

Ask me not the senseless names 
Of flowers, laughing flowers, — 
Children of the pleasant sun 
With veins athirst for showers. 

Winds and the bees have mocked us all, 
O flowers, laughing flowers; 
If we would a beauty keep, 
It runs to other bowers. 

Give a name to serious earth, 
Not flowers, laughing flowers; 
Fickle seed and sudden death — 
Only these are ours. 



75 



THE PALMER PRAYS 

I have not viewed, O Lord, Thy tomb 

Nor in the manger gazed ; 
These later eyes the blessed gloom 

And joy never amazed. 

Though these to me, O Lord, are naught 

But pictures in the mind, 
And Thee my feet in vain have sought 

To walk until I find. 

Yet open Thou, O Lord, my breast 
And loose my fettered love; 

Breathe on its wings untiring quest; 
Make it Thy holy Dove ; 

And bid it fare from pole to pole 

Nor bow for diadem 
Till with its hope each human soul 

Becomes a Bethlehem. 



7 6 



INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1898 

Decked gay with flags and confident with lights, 
Onward our ship sails through the endless nights ; 

Only applause and mad huzzas we hear 
And high with pride heed neither storms nor 
fights. 

So we speed on in ease, why conjure fears? 
Fine man the captain, whom we load with cheers. 

This freedom of the sea is full of fame! 
Hush! Those who heave the coal are mutineers! 



77 



SONG 

Love, it is not death I dread, — 
Light withdrawn and jewing sped 
But that when you weep 
I must hear yet sleep. 

Love, that is the utter sting, 
That is the bitter, bitter thing: 
My song mewed in my heart 
And from it thou apart. 



FEBRUARY 

Though none keener than her stings, 
There is healing in her wings. 
Hungry fields begin to hope; 
Odors faint begin to grope 
Feelingly at morn and eve; 
Like a lover the sun doth leave 
With red eyes the spoused earth 
For a morrow's earlier mirth; 
Shaped and molded of sky and dew 
Drops a musical thing of blue, 
And some dawn with breast of fire 
Robin heralds the coming choir. 



78 



IN THE HEART OF A WOOD 

(Rustic Dionysia: 450 B C ) 
SATYR 

No outcry, girl ! 

But, like a pearl, 

Rest in a sea of bliss. 

By the white dove! 

What hour to love 

More softly wins than this? 

The sun is spent; 

The firmament 

Shows red the hunted cloud ; 

The night-wind sings 

With ripple of wings: 

List, girl, and be not proud. 

Against the west 

I have a nest 

Arched by a willow's arms; 

And by it trips 

With busy lips 

A stream to cheat alarms. 

There, lest it grow 

Too cold below 

My body as I lie, 

A panther sleeps 

Daylong and keeps 

It warm till I come nigh. 

A laurel stands 

With heaped up hands 

Of cherries just in reach, 

And but a pace 

With steady grace 

Ripens the lush-cheeked peach. 



79 



Must I confess 

Long hours on waiting knees? 

Thy wild, wild eyes 

Must I surprise 

With kissing till love please? 

Out on my will ! 

How dost thou chill 

My heart, till now one flame? 

What mystery 

Doth hidden lie 

In brows that teach me shame? 

Forgive me, spare 

Me ! Is it fair 

A goddess walk the earth 

Disguised so, 

When mortals throw 

The symbols in mad mirth? 

My wine-stung cheek 

It was bade seek 

The rage of Venus' rule, — 

Hear me and save, 

My life I crave! 



Save me, Demeter! — 
DEMETER 
Fool! 



{Thunderbolt) 



{He dies) 



80 



SONG 

I awoke in the night 
To the call of a bird — 

Ere the morning light 
The flash of a word : 

"Sweet deep I sing thee. 

Winnow thee, zving thee!" 
'Twas all I heard. 

And the round, happy note 

Of the tawn oriole, 
Like a drifting boat, 

In the night found a goal 
"Sweet sleep I sing thee, 
Winnow thee, wing thee!" 

God guard thy soul. 



81 



DREAM-POEM 

The marges of the waterway 
May never kiss, may never play: 
The hither brake with yonder zuillow 
May never share the selfsame pillow. 

Where poppies once had spread a silken sheen, 
I la)^ and watched the seed-cups offer sleep ; 
The vagrant moon upraised her lean old hands 
And waved them to and fro and muttered deep 
The magic lore wherein is she the queen. 

Came they to whom death gave no peace, no rest : 
They who in tasting life found life so sweet 
That afterflight made barren alien lands; 
Thirst all their blood and vanity their quest, 
Through wayless fields the3^ hurry anxious feet. 

Both young and old uttered their litanies 
Unto the deaf queen clad in tattered cloud, 
That she would charm their temples for a space, 
Whisper the secret of the stars most wise 
Who, low beside the queen, shine yet most proud. 

* * * * & * * 

I saw T e'en little babies hollow-eyed, 
With tiny hands begging one tiny grain 
To soothe the body till it learn some grace, 
Since nature cruel to their months denied 
The complement to ripen and make sane. 
******* 

And men of many climes and many ages 
Whom beauty drave delirious with joy 
And who were fain to celebrate her name; 
And women who for love filled dreary pages 
The while fate fashioned of their souls a toy; 

82 



And gentle girls, too carelessly elect, 

Who chose luxurious days and barred love out 

And stared and starved and wondered whose the 

blame ; 
And eager boys who schemed and last were 

checked, 
Whom hounding rage of riches put to rout: 

Endless they prayed, as endless prayed in vain : 
The seed-cups emptied ever in wide air. 
Wild birds wove ominous midnight melodies 
Of unfulfilled desire and useless gain 
And of the unwed moon and parched bear. 

Upward the weeping dead in spirals flew, 
Blotting the light of all the waiting stars; 
And then the world grew glad of morning's eyes 
Wherein to-day men plan to-morrow's rue 
And women stab their souls and hide the scars. 

The marges of the waterway 
May never kiss, may never play: 
The hither brake with yonder willow 
May never share the selfsame pillow. 



33 



WILD-FLOWER 

Once in a field after harvest-time 

Where the proud-belted grain had stood, 

I saw a blossom, a tardy chime 

Of the singing when voices were good. 

Sunlight had opened the little heart wide 
For me to bend down and know; 

And I learned her whole life ere she faded and 
died 
In her home now shrouded with snow. 

This is the singular joy of it all 

That her name is a secret to- me ; 
E'en though her kin by their name I may call, 

My sweet love alone is she. 



SONG 

And it's oh! for the mounting sun, 
And it's oh ! for the soaring bird, 
And it's oh ! for the lift of my soul to-day 
Singing and being heard. 

Ah me ! for the coming night, 

Ah me! for the desolate bird, 

Ah me! for the sob of the desperate soul 

In vain, alone, unheard. 



8 4 



AUTUMN CONFESSIONAL 

Into the wildwood I will go 
And dream the world away; 
No merry bird the path will show 
But the ever-sighing day. 

I know a hidden mere therein, 
Yearly it reads my face ; 
The shadowy thought and unwrought sin 
Run to that soft embrace. 

Above the endless leagues I lean, 
Leagues of transparent truth; 
Into those liquid bowers green 
I weep my bitter ruth. 

And then beside the holy marge 
One night is mine to dream, 
For down will fall the magic barge 
And find a spirit-stream. 

And some day at the birth of morn 
My barge will take her flight; 
My grey, sad city, spent and worn, 
Will be beyond my sight. 



85 



NOVEMBER 

Nothing human in her air, 
Memoried her icy stare: 
She knows sorrow to the heart 
And the world's tame word and art. 
Leaden-grey her simple gown 
Wherein she, untouched of town, 
Counts her old, cheap rosary 
With her face up toward the sky. 
I would crawl the endless mile 
Just to see her one pure smile, — 
Smile whereon the angels wait 
Wide to open heaven's gate. 



DECEMBER 

In her folds of fallen snow 
Sacred earth seems moving slow 
Like a hoar priest fillet-bound 
As he leads mid solemn sound 
Lamb or goat or ox gold-horned. 
In her hand her wand, leaf-thorned 
Holly with its sanguine berry, 
And the mistletoe — ah, very 
Pale that magic berry lies: 
Symbols both of sacrifice. 
Hark! what bells bud with the morn? 
"Lo, the Prince of Peace is born!" 



86 



SONG 

Out of the cold, dry stem 

Leaps a bud, as a gem 

Takes fire when the sun finds its' heart. 

Out of the bud a flower 

Born of a light May shower 

Waked up in the night with a start. 

Out of the flower the fruit 

Comes lush from the bending shoot 

Low to the air made glad as a child. . 

Only the cold, dry stem — 

Fruit flown and the sweet-born gem — 

Sleeps with the great Mother mild. 



THE AVENGER 

The white bird of day is dead: 
Night, the hawk, fell on him suddenly. 
The happy throat sang as it bled, 
Dropping its scarlet feathers along the sky. 
The hawk grows glut on his prey; 
But the calm-eyed stars, 
Whom he ever unbars, 
Know the avenger is on the way. 



3/ 



THE WHOLE STORY 

Just my hand held so 

Across mine eyes 

Blots out the sun: 
Little thing, a hand, — 

All said and done — 

To hood wide skies. 

All this room is dark 

Save that one streak 

The kejdiole sends : 
Little thing, a soul, 

That earth's gloom rends, 

Learning to speak! 



ULtfC* 



88 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




012 402 339 7 Q 



"■ 



